


When One Door Opens

by hawkstout



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Batman: The Killing Joke, F/M, Mention of attempted suicide, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkstout/pseuds/hawkstout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She should have opened the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When One Door Opens

**Author's Note:**

> So my hand is wrapped in a bandage and it’s gotten in the way of my typing so I’m doing a bunch of short fic prompts while I wait for it to heal so I can go back to my long fics. They’re all 500 words more or less.
> 
> wafflechocobo’s prompt:
> 
> There is a lack of females on this list so um if you feel like more: Something with Barbara. Maybe Dick/Babs. Or just Oracle being great.
> 
> Babs angst ahoy.

It all changed with the sound of a doorbell.

Dick was over. After months of being away he was back in Gotham and they were talking because that’s what friends… and almost not quite friends do. They were trying so hard not to let it circle back to Batman. Dick was working so hard not to ask why she quit. Why she left when she had berated him for leaving Bruce only six months earlier.

There had been a Joker sighting. Her Dad was out of the house. He was supposed to be here, but he wasn’t so it was her and Dick not talking about old times.

Just when he was about to break and finally ask so she could finally explain the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it, it’s probably the pizza,” He said quickly, retreating. She sighed. Wonderful.

Dick opened the door. She saw it all in frozen panels. The pale face of a monster. The tension and fear in Dick’s back. The solid moment where no one moved because it was too close and he’d never be able to dodge it. The bang. Dick falling.

“Wrong one,” the Joker cackled. He looked at her. She stared, frozen, she should run to Dick, she should run away. She looked into the green eyes of madness. He smiled at her ruefully.

“Oh well!” He shrugged cheerfully and walked away from the door. A slow laughter rolled on the porch and off into the night.

“DICK!!!”

-

Maybe it’s because it should have been her. She runs across the rooftops and thinks she sees a ripple of black, but when she turns there’s no one there. HE doesn’t talk to her anymore. She doesn’t care because it’s not about him.

_“Nightwing, what’s your stich?”_

It’s like he’s talking in the third person, but he’s actually talking to her.

“Midtown, nothing’s happening right now,” She answered. She stared down at the lights and the people. High above everyone, balancing, one step away from a gruesome death.

She should have been the one to open the door.

_“Stargazing, Beautiful?”_

She wanted violence.

Hearing him whisper in her ear was a punishment because he had forgiven her.

No. Worse. He had never even blamed her.

Dick, the most beautiful graceful being she had ever met, her best friend had been broken on her watch and he didn’t even blame her.

She heard a scream for help and it relieved her. She let herself fall letting the grapple support her and tried not to think about how he could have done it without.

Three men picking on a little girl. She couldn’t be more than sixteen and then she noticed the girl was trying to shield someone smaller. A little brother.

And the pizza nights on rooftops and dancing and giggling and platonic love came back before other emotions set in. Her little brother.

She breathed heavily, angrily, her hand hurt, blood dripped off her knuckles, someone was crying.

It should have been her, but she was too busy laughing.

He didn’t want her to touch him anymore.

And it wasn’t the blame because he didn’t blame her. It was the self-loathing. He didn’t want to burden her. He sat in his chair in front of his computers and flirted and laughed and hated himself.

SHE should have opened the door.

_“Nightwing?”_

“Yeah O?” She whispers. The children had run, the thugs were on the ground, they were still breathing too.

_“You haven’t moved for a while.”_

And she had to, didn’t she? Move, she had to move.

It was supposed to be college and university and getting a good job and helping Bruce on his crusade from inside the system. Batgirl wasn’t needed, it was dangerous and stupid. A game played as a teenager when she didn’t know better.

Now it was different, now she owed Dick Grayson her legs, her movement. Every step was for him, every swing was for him, because he couldn’t do it anymore.

He could only sit in his goddamn chair.

WHY DIDN’T SHE OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR?!?!?

“Batgirl.”

She turned; she doesn’t breathe because it’s him. It’s been six months since he’s said anything to her. She turns.

HE blames her, but he doesn’t matter.

“That’s not my name anymore.”

It’s his uniform. She didn’t change anything. Skin tight black and blue. She cut her hair and dyed it black.

He always liked twining his fingers through her long red hair. He didn’t touch it anymore so there was no need for it. The only difference was the slender frame and the breasts. Nightwing hadn’t been well known, people were starting to think he had always been a she.

“We need to talk, alone,” He said pointedly and she felt anger and nervousness because he always made her a little nervous. He had always been the boss, even when she pretended she was going solo, there was a reason it had been ‘Batgirl.’

“Logging off for now…Oracle.”

_“Later, Sunshine.”_

“What is it?”

“You can’t replace him.”

“Isn’t that what I said to you?” She asked coldly. She loved Jason and Dick loved Jason. He was a good kid, rough around the edges, but everyone is at that age. Baby crime fighters just need time. With Dick looking out for him, making sure he had a place when Bruce got to be too much it would all work out fine for Jason. That didn’t mean the carelessness of Bruce wasn’t to be questioned.

He threw out his partner—his son and it took him three months to find someone else to fill the slot.

“He’s still alive Barbara.”

Because Batman avoids talking about his own faults and likes to dwell on others.

“His life was taken away,” She corrected. “This isn’t about him.”

“Yes it is.”

“It’s about me.”

“Barbara.”

“Some people think it’s all about vengeance and justice with you,” She walked forward staring into the white eyelets of his mask, “Anyone that knows you’re Bruce Wayne think it’s a matter of revenge. I used to think that. Now I think it’s something else.”

“You don’t need to be him.”

“You don’t need to be Batman, but you are and it’s not out of bitterness or revenge, it’s because you were thankful. You were spared, but you still lose those most important to you. You honour them with the life that you were granted. I should have been the one to open the door Bruce. It should have been me.”

“There are many points in time that could have changed it,” Batman said and reluctantly he pulled off his cowl letting her see sincerity behind the grim mask. “If we hadn’t fought, if he hadn’t come back to Gotham, if the commissioner had been with you that night as planned. It can’t all be brought down to him deciding to get the door instead of you.”

She hates him for a second because he knew that already and maybe she was hoping talking to him would give her clarity and make it so she could forgive herself.

She turned to leave. Nightwing didn’t need to be associated with Batman. Nightwing was always supposed to be out of the shadow of the Bat.

“He was thankful it was him and not you.”

He says it softly, but she hears him anyway.

“He isn’t thankful,” She denied, “You can’t be thankful over losing something like that. He didn’t just lose his legs Bruce. He lost the last connection with his parents. He lost his childhood. He lost standing by your side on rooftops. He lost his quadruple summersault. It would have just been walking for me. It would have been standing. I could have dealt with that more easily than him. He almost killed himself when he woke up. Did you know that? Of course you do. You watch everything. He’s only starting build himself again. A version of him that doesn’t fly. I’m a realist Bruce, he isn’t thankful he saved me, he’s trying to justify the violation committed against him. Making it seem worth it. At least Barbara Gordon can still walk. Who cares? You don’t. Are you trying to justify it too? At least Dick saved Barbara? At least the loss of his legs was worth something? Fuck you, Bruce.”

“Batgirl—Nightwing, please.”

“You should have let Jason finish that monster off with the crowbar.”

She let herself fall off the building. She almost let herself try for a trick jump, like he would have done it, but falls back on the grapple.

She was just giving thanks.

“Hey guy wonder, I’m back online.”

_“I was just starting to miss your voice.”_


End file.
